“Let’s go fly a kite,” sang Julie Andrews, and I suspect she was not merely talking of paper, string and boys running across maidans yelling instructions nobody obeys.

She was talking of imagination.

And I worry we have misplaced ours.

Once upon a time boredom was not a disease. It was a doorway.

You sat staring at a wall, watched a crow quarrel with another crow, twirled a pencil, did absolutely nothing, and suddenly your mind wandered into astonishing places. You invented stories. Designed impossible machines. Imagined becoming prime minister, film star, or opening batsman for India.

Today the moment boredom appears, we assassinate it.

Out comes the cellphone.

Scroll. Swipe. Tap.

Repeat till soul expires.

The phone has become that overenthusiastic aunt who never lets you sit quietly.

“What are you thinking?”

“Nothing.”

“Here watch this reel.”

And there goes a possible invention.

I sometimes think if Isaac Newton had owned a smartphone, the apple would have fallen on his head and instead of discovering gravity he would have Googled, “Why fruit attacks scientists.”

We laugh, but creativity often comes from empty spaces.

Boredom is the runway from which imagination takes off.

When I was young, we flew kites with great seriousness. Entire friendships ended over cut strings. Neighbourhood diplomacy depended on wind direction.

But there was wonder in looking up.

You watched your kite tremble, tug, rise.

Rather like a thought.

And imagination behaves exactly like that.

It needs looseness. It needs sky. It needs those idle moments when the mind wanders where schedules do not permit.

Yet now every free second is occupied. Waiting at a signal. Phone. In a lift. Phone. Eating. Phone.

Talking to spouse. Still phone.

Soon husbands may propose by WhatsApp from the next sofa.

And what is tragic is that we mistake consumption for creativity. Watching ten thousand videos is not imagination.

Creating one new thought is.

Many of our finest ideas do not come while working furiously but while doing nothing useful at all. Under a tree. In a bath. Walking. Daydreaming. Being gloriously bored.

Children especially need this. A child over entertained rarely imagines. Give a bored child a stick and he creates a sword, fishing rod, spaceship and government policy.

Adults are no different. Hope itself is imagination. To dream a better future is imagination. To solve problems is imagination.

To pray is imagination touched by faith. So put the phone down occasionally.

Permit boredom to visit. Welcome silence. Stare at clouds. Waste time magnificently.

Because somewhere inside you is a kite waiting for wind. And perhaps the greatest tragedy is not that our batteries run low. It is that our minds do.

So stop scrolling. Become bored. And let your imagination rise till it pulls against the string.

Go fly a kite…!

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